Chris Gherardini on the role of data in ERP and CRM Systems

In this episode Frank and Andy have a chat with Chris Gherardini on the role of data in ERP and CRM Systems.

Transcript

00:00:00 BAILey 

Hello and welcome to data driven, the podcast where we explore the emerging fields of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence. In this episode, Frank and Andy speak to Chris Gardini about the role data plays in ERP and CRM systems. 

00:00:17 Frank 

Hello and welcome back to data driven. The podcast where we explore the emerging fields of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence. If you like to think of data as the new oil, then you can think of us like Car Talk because we focus on where the rubber meets the road. Although there's not much of a road trip usually on this virtual road trip. 

00:00:37 Frank 

Is Andy Leonard? How's it going, Andy? 

00:00:40 Andy 

Hey Frank, it's going really well. How are you doing? 

00:00:43 Frank 

I'm doing alright, you know, with the exception I might have to buy a new desktop computer. 

00:00:48 Andy 

Ah, I have not. 

00:00:49 Frank 

Possibly, or power supply. Literally. We were on this call and all of a sudden everything froze and I was like Oh well, blue screen. Big deal. 

00:00:59 Frank 

And then when I went to power it back on. 

00:01:03 Frank 

It just kept keeps beeping so I'm like oh, fee something something hard so I'm going to have to do some search engine work and possibly get a new power supply or something. 

00:01:06 Andy 

Codes. 

00:01:13 Frank 

Fortunately, micro center. 

00:01:14 Andy 

Everything is. 

00:01:17 Andy 

Go ahead. 

00:01:17 Andy 

00:01:17 Andy 

I've gotta say Frank, everything is figure out able right? 

00:01:21 Frank 

Everything is figure out able because of my experience with clear DB and all sorts of other drama. I have multiple backups of just about everything it if if you know so it's it's. It'll be an inconvenience, not a tragedy. 

00:01:32 Andy 

Outstanding. 

00:01:37 Frank 

But every opportunity to come back from a complete backup failure is an opportunity to learn. 

00:01:47 Frank 

And, uhm, Speaking of opportunity, it's really good timing that this guest is here because I as folks know I work at the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston and recently. 

00:02:00 Frank 

There was a, uh, someone we were on this engagement and it was very heavy into dynamics and uh, dynamics is one of those things. I haven't really looked into Andy and I have been experimenting with power apps and power platform, mostly to kind of help automate a lot of our content. 

00:02:21 Frank 

Production. 

00:02:22 Chris 

This is crucial as we. 

00:02:24 Frank 

Continue to put the final touches on our secret project, but this guest here is an expert in dynamics as well as various ERP solutions. 

00:02:36 Frank 

And he's from Saint Louis, and his name is Christian. I'm really blowing this intro here. His name is Cristiano Gardeny. Did I pronounce that right? 

00:02:48 Chris 

Cristiano Guardian yeah, he pulled our sounded out there so. 

00:02:48 Frank 

OK good good. 

00:02:51 Frank 

He did fine, got it. Sorry about that. He's the president and owner of Turnkey Technologies and they are a Microsoft partner. I did looking around on their website and they are basically they provide development, analytics, training and support services for Microsoft Dynamics. 

00:03:09 Frank 

If you don't know what Microsoft Dynamics is, a lot of people don't. In the data world tend to just know it tangentially. It's basically Microsoft CRM system, so welcome to the show, Cristiano. 

00:03:21 Chris 

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. 

00:03:25 Frank 

It's good to have you here, and so what's the weather like in Saint Louis right now? 

00:03:30 Chris 

Ah, it's beautiful and sunny. Today it's about 64 degrees Sun index is just right around A5, so it's actually it's actually nice and better than the the ice. We had a couple weeks ago so. 

00:03:38 Frank 

Knife. 

00:03:42 Andy 

Yeah, it got bitterly cold out there for about a week, didn't it? 

00:03:47 Chris 

That's right, I happen to be in Florida that entire week. Everybody couldn't believe I missed all the fun. So with the IT was good, it was a good week to be gone. We left Saturday. We came back Sunday was 52 when we got back and the 9 inches of snow had melted and. 

00:03:51 Chris 

Unfelt 

00:03:51 Chris 

00:04:00 Chris 

So yeah, perfect timing. 

00:04:02 Frank 

Nice, now you have excellent timing Sir. Not only in just the fact that dynamics is kind of coming up, coming up on my personal radar, but also in terms of avoiding bad weather. My first question is and I'm calm. Still a new bit dynamics. I learned a lot just by working on this. 

00:04:23 Frank 

One engagement we had DMTC. 

00:04:27 Frank 

Is Dinah. 

00:04:28 BAILey 

Mix. 

00:04:29 Chris 

So Dynamics Dynamics is the biz apps. I mean, you said CRM. It's more than CRM. But today dynamics represents a family of products. You know, the legacy on Prem products, Dynamics AX Dynamics, Navy Dynamics, GP, Dynamics, SL and then the current dynamics 365, which encompasses both you know financing. 

00:04:49 Chris 

Operations, which was the dynamics AX and then Dynamics 365 business Central which was the Navy? So those are both ERP products. 

00:04:57 Chris 

And then Dynamics customer engagement, which is the CRM platform so so dynamics is a collection of biz apps. It's a family of products and you know today we we focus on the two dynamics 365 ERP products and the CRM. The customer engagement product. So great solution, but it's a platform also it. 

00:05:15 Frank 

That's what I noticed, and folks that are listening. They're like this is a data science kind of data engineering show. Why the heck are you talking about? 

00:05:25 Frank 

Dynamics but dataverse the data models, which are one of the things that blew me away, was on this one demo is that there's a. There's a button where you just basically can dump out all your cream data. 

00:05:38 Frank 

Or all your data and dynamics out to a data Lake. 

00:05:42 Chris 

That's absolutely right, Azure. So if you think about the challenges where you move from a legacy system to the cloud, maybe all the data doesn't move and you need to combine it in an Azure data like a data warehouse, and certainly all those tools and all the analytics are all part of the platform. That's just it touches dynamics out of the box, so it's quite a quite a degree of efficiency. 

00:06:02 Chris 

There. 

00:06:03 Frank 

Interesting. 

00:06:05 Frank 

So one question I have about dynamics is it's history now. You mentioned Dynamics AX and a couple of other letters next to the word dynamics. 

00:06:17 Frank 

Once Upon a time when I worked when I lived in Richmond, there was a guy who used to do a lot of work with that technology. 

00:06:24 Frank 

Back and it was Solomon in Great Plains is that is that the same thing is that the lineages from it. 

00:06:30 Chris 

That's correct, that's correct, that's correct. And so the US based products was Great Plains software out of Fargo ND, and a gentleman named Doug Burgum owned that company privately and then his family. They bought the the Salomon product line as well and then in 2001 is when Microsoft bought Great Plains. 

00:06:32 

Silly. 

00:06:46 Chris 

Software, so that's kind of how they consume the North American products and then a year later Microsoft went to Europe and bought Dynamics AX and Dynamics Navy. It was called Exapta in division so and that became a second big purchase and instantly at 2002 they had four ERP products and they're in the biz apps space like they've never been. 

00:06:48 Chris 

OK, so. 

00:06:48 Chris 

00:07:06 Chris 

Before so. 

00:07:09 Frank 

Ah OK, that's interesting. 'cause I I now I know why. There's a huge Microsoft campus in Fargo. 

00:07:16 Chris 

Yes, yes. 

00:07:18 Chris 

It's...